TERMINAL C PASSENGER EXPERIENCE STUDY
What's actually happening in your terminal?
the challenge
Mitigate poor investment decisions by closing the gap between aggregate data and spatial understanding of Boston Logan Airport's built environment.
the outcome
Passenger journey maps, decision point analysis, friction zone identification & study design for follow-up data collection phases.
TYPE:
Ethnographic Research
CLIENT:
Massachusetts Port Authority (Massport) & Boston Logan Airport
KEYWORDS:
Airports, Research, Ethnography, Mobility, Spatial Analysis
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The friction that matters most is invisible to surveys
Most airports can report aggregate passenger satisfaction. Few can tell you where in the terminal passengers lose confidence, when anxiety spikes, or what in the built environment is triggering those moments. That gap between aggregate data and spatial understanding is where poor investment decisions get made — improvements land in the wrong places, and the friction that actually drives dissatisfaction goes unaddressed.
Massport approached INVIVIA to close that gap. Working alongside Massport teams, we mapped the full passenger journey from pre-security (ticket hall, check-in, security entry) through to post-security zones — gates, concessions, and the connection between Terminals C and E. The work combined systematic ethnographic observation, touchpoint mapping, and detailed spatial modeling of the terminal across multiple site visits and passenger types.
Satisfaction scores don't tell you where a terminal is failing
A complete map of the Terminal C passenger journey
The output wasn't a satisfaction score. It was a map: every decision point in the passenger journey, the information sources passengers rely on and ignore, the moments where spatial design works against intent. We identified friction that no survey would surface — the gate holdroom where boarding crowds spill into the adjacent gate, the corridor where wayfinding logic breaks down for the C/E connection.
Laying the foundation for five subsequent work orders
When you know exactly what's failing and why, every downstream investment becomes more targeted. This baseline research directly informed the scope, methods, and priorities of an inclusive experience audit, smart wayfinding design, installation projects, and behavioral studies that followed.
Our Approach and Expertise